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EJToday: Top Headlines

EJToday is SEJ's selection of new and outstanding stories on environmental topics in print and on the air, updated every weekday. SEJ also offers a free e-mailed digest of the day's EJToday postings, called SEJ-beat. SEJ members are subscribed automatically, but may opt out here. Non-members may subscribe here. EJToday is also available via RSS feed. Please see Editorial Guidelines for EJToday content.

"The persistent plunge in oil prices has translated into a new round of industry job cuts. The British oil giant BP said on Tuesday it would eliminate 4,000 of the approximately 24,000 positions in its exploration and production units this year."

"Indonesian energy company Lapindo Brantas plans to resume drilling for gas near the site of a mud volcano, its CEO said, referring to a disaster that some scientists say it helped to create around 10 years ago."

"The California Air Resources Board said on Tuesday it rejected Volkswagen AG's (VOWG_p.DE) plan to fix 2.0 liter diesel cars equipped with software that allows them to emit up to 40 times legally allowable pollution."

"Arch Coal, the second-largest U.S. coal miner, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Monday with a plan to cut $4.5 billion in debt from its balance sheet in the midst of a prolonged downturn in the coal industry."

"A group of armed protestors have taken control of a wildlife refuge in Oregon demanding public lands be privatized. A Colorado College poll released Monday says most voters in seven Western states don’t support their mission."

"The armed occupation of a wildlife refuge in southeastern Oregon has interrupted important habitat restoration work that must be completed before spring migration — when hundreds of thousands of birds descend on the area’s vast wetlands, conservationists and bird-watchers say."

"Large numbers of migrating Yellowstone National Park bison are likely to face slaughter for at least the next couple of winters as officials weigh changes to a 15-year-old agreement that drives the practice, the park's superintendent said."

"NEW ORLEANS — The first-ever federal regulations for large-scale fish farming in the ocean were issued Monday, opening a new frontier in the harvesting of popular seafood species such as red drum, tuna and red snapper."

"Government officials will consider new protections for a small, fanged predator [the fisher] that thrives in old-growth forests of the Northern Rockies over concerns that trapping, habitat loss and poisoning could be harming the animal's population."

The staple banana variety available in U.S. supermarkets -- often the ONLY variety -- is threatened by a tropical fungus that is slowly killing it off as it spreads across the globe. The question is whether new, resistant varieties can be found and developed.